Need help choosing a laptop!

ok, so i want to get a new laptop. I currently use my ipad 2 as a computer and i also have an old compaq presario c551nr that i dont really use. I want to ditch my ipad and get a laptop that is a significant upgrade from the ipad and compaq.
My spending limit is 450$. I could possibly spend a little more if necessary.

So whats the best laptop i could get for that amount of money?
I would mainly use it for web browsing, typing up projects for school, some minor video editing, watching movies, and minor gaming (flash games and simple games like sim city, no major games like bf3 or skyrim).

also, a nice build quality is a must. I dont want some cheap feeling laptop. I want one with a nice screen and keyboard.

yea i do want a macbook, but those are way too much money. If i were to get a macbook, i would get the macbook pro which i believe starts at 1,199$ brand new. I dont want a refurbished laptop either. Unfortunately, i dont have that kind of money to blow on a laptop.

well how much money would i have to spend? i suppose i could wait and save up some more money since im not in a rush. What laptops would you reccommend?

Somewhere between $500-$700 would be ideal for a minimum price. If I were you, I'd want to make a solid investment in something up front instead of paying the price (literally, the price difference) later on when it either breaks or just constantly reminds you of the fact that you didn't pay more.

It varies from laptop to laptop, but Lenovo can be pretty good, and I've heard of people having luck with Acer too, even though they're competition-hating chinamen. Overall though, it's best to spend a fair amount of time looking into reviews of individual laptops as opposed to generalizing by brand and blindingly choosing one from that manufacturer's product line.

ill keep that in mind, but also, what makes this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834215618 so much better than the two laptops i listed in my first post? it sure does look nicer and is much slimmer, but what else makes it worth 200$ more? i noticed it has a ssd but all the other specs looked the same to me and it had less ghz. I don't know much about computer specs so im sorry if i sound ignorant by saying all of this.

that looks like a nice computer. I will look more into that one. Im just wondering why i'm seeing computers (ultrabooks) for the same prices when some have worse or much worse specs.... Doesn't make much sense to me. Wouldnt everyone just buy the one with the better specs?

Not when portability and battery life are important. If they aren't, then you should probably get a desktop anyway. At (relatively) identical price points, manufacturers have to "cut" a few corners to fit parts into a much smaller frame. It costs more to shrink down similarly performing hardware, so in order to cut size but maintain a price point, sacrifices have to be made. For your purposes, though, the actual performance differences between the first two lappies you linked and the last one I linked will be minimal at worst.

In all honesty, if I were you I would wait until Intel releases their newest microarchitecture (Haswell) sometime in late Spring of next year to buy a laptop. Assuming you have the patience and ability to slum it with an iPad until then, that's what I'd do. Ideally, we'll see a jump in battery life and integrated graphics performance with Haswell that would serve you well.